


Lessons in Humanity

by ThereBeWhalesHere



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Game(s), Sentimental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 19:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17834387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereBeWhalesHere/pseuds/ThereBeWhalesHere
Summary: How does someone programmed to serve learn to ask for what he wants? Connor is struggling, but thankfully Hank has become his semi-willing human tutor in the weeks following the revolution. Maybe tonight Connor can figure out how to tell Hank he wants more.





	Lessons in Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> Oops, I tripped and fell into a new fandom. :')
> 
> I'm so in love with this pairing I think I might croak. I know everyone and their mother has probably written a HankCon confession by now (I'm late to this party), but I had to try my hand at it. Please enjoy!

Outside the car windows, fog clinging to their edges, the snow falls delicate and silent. An occasional burst of wind kicks it up into swirling eddies as it cascades over playground equipment and settles on the frozen tips of the grass, everything blindingly white against the black backdrop of another Detroit midnight. The world around them might be peaceful right about now, if not for the noise inside the car itself.

 

As Connor sits straight in his seat, staring out over the darkened park, the grating hum of a decades-old heater grinds in the car’s hood, and the heavy guitar riffs of some band called Pig Destroyer are shaking the chassis on its tires. The lyrics stand in stark contrast to the serene snow falling around them: “Get on your knees, you know you want to. We've become the nation of victimization. Why can't we admit we're hypocrites?”

 

Connor glances over to Hank in the driver’s seat, a cigarette tucked loosely between two fingers, a gentle smile on his face as he leans back with his eyes closed.

 

Connor can admit now that he doesn’t much care for Pig Destroyer, or Knights of the Black Death, or any of Hank’s heavy metal. He can admit now that he prefers the jazz albums Hank likes to listen to when he’s making dinner and Connor is sitting on his couch, indulging in Hank’s “lessons in humanity,” which have turned out to be seasons upon seasons of ‘90s sitcoms. Connor usually turns the TV down, listens for the music in the kitchen, instead.

 

He can admit now that he has a preference because it is _only_ now, weeks after the revolution, that he _has_ preferences. They aren’t based on any logical structure or functioning algorithm -- heavy metal musicians express just as much talent as jazz musicians, and each instrument’s tone bears its own unique sound and signature. But he just doesn’t _like_ the genre very much. It’s a feeling. As inexplicable as any other emotion that has wormed its way into his programming since he first chose not to kill Markus all those weeks ago.

 

Now, sitting silently beside his partner, he can’t tell Hank he doesn’t care for metal. He can’t ask Hank to switch to Ella Fitzgerald. Because Connor doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants. Wanting has never been part of his program. Wanting has never been written into his instructions. He was not designed to want.

 

But Connor wants.

 

Pig Destroyer screams from the crackling old speakers: “Could it be that secretly we like being kept down? Tell me, where does it stop? This tower of law, this army of cops.”

 

Cigarette smoke settles in a haze as it fills up the car, barely a tendril seeping through the window Hank cracked less than an inch when they pulled up a few minutes ago. The smell isn’t wholly unpleasant, if Connor is being honest with himself. It reminds him of Hank wrapping his arms around Connor in the post-revolution relief, the first embrace Connor has ever been given. It reminds him of tucking his nose into Hank’s coat and breathing him in, analyzing every particle of dust clinging to the old leather.

 

When Hank finishes his cigarette, he’ll likely pull a beer from the six-pack in the back seat. It seems to be his routine, after investigating a late-night crime scene. Now they’ve been working together like this for nearly a month, it's Connor's routine, too.

 

Connor _wants_ to join him every night. So he does.

 

The song ends: “Why would god create something so weak unless he wanted it to suffer?”

 

Staring without worry he may be told to stop, Connor watches Hank’s lips kiss his cigarette, breathing smoke so deep his chest fills and expands, buttons on his shirt straining. The ember glows, smoulders, and smoke curls from the corner of Hank’s lips, floods out of his mouth in slow motion as he exhales. A piece of ash flutters onto his thigh.

 

Connor wants to be that cigarette.

 

“I always tell you you’re gonna get bored, nights like this,” Hank says over the beginning of a new song -- blessedly slower, blessedly quieter -- tilting his head to meet Connor’s eyes. He’s smiling, tongue pressed up against the back of his teeth. Connor wants to be the back of his teeth.

 

“Not at all, Lieutenant,” Connor says. He turns his eyes out toward the park once again, the fleecy snow clouds glowing where they pass over the moon above Detroit’s skyline. “It’s … nice.” That isn’t entirely true. Connor wishes Hank wouldn’t smoke, wishes he could tell Hank how precious his lungs are. Connor wishes Hank would turn down the music, or turn it off. Connor wishes, and he wants, and he doesn’t know how to ask for it.

 

“Huh,” Hank says, shrugging. He cranks down his window just low enough to flick his cigarette out, then rolls it all the way back up, brushing the fallen ash from his jeans. Connor wants to be those jeans, wants Hank’s rough hand to brush against him like that.

 

“What do you mean, ‘huh’?” Connor asks. “If sitting here weren’t nice, you wouldn’t do it every night.” He gives Hank a smile, then, a small thing, but Hank returns it.

 

“Getting wasted  isn’t nice, but I do _that_ every night,” Hank points out. “I’m just saying. End of android oppression and all, you could be out doing whatever you want, ‘stead of sitting here with an old man drowning his sorrows.”

 

“You haven’t started drowning your sorrows yet,” Connor says. He nods toward the six-pack in the back. Hank glances to it, too.

 

“Good point,” Hank says. With a grunt, he hoists himself up and leans between their seats, his pineapple-patterned blue and yellow shirt untucking itself from the corner of his jeans. Connor stares at the slight stretch of exposed skin above Hank’s belt, his LED flashing -- thankfully while Hank remains distracted.

 

As Hank tugs a bottle toward freedom and inelegantly spills the rest of the six-pack, bottles clank and tumble onto the seat, rolling onto the floor, nudging up against a few crumpled fast-food bags. But Hank emerges victorious, settling back into his seat with a hard-won beer in his hand.

 

“No time like the present,” he says in toast. Connor just offers him a wry smile. Because it isn’t until Hank reaches back into the pocket of his jacket, draped on the back of his seat, that his eyes widen and he lets out a low curse. Connor won’t tell him he removed the bottle opener from Hank’s jacket back at the station. Connor doesn’t know how to tell him he wants Hank to stop drinking.

 

“Open that for me, will you?” Hank asks, shoving the bottle under Connor’s nose. LED cycling for a moment, Connor takes it. Cooper’s Extra Strong Vintage Ale, he reads. A quick scan of the beer pops up on his HUD. ABV: 7.5 percent, made with Aramis hops, protein: 1.8g, carbohydrates: 21.7g.

 

Instead of opening it, he holds it in his lap, staring down into the murky liquid like it’s some kind of oracle. Like it might hold some answers.

 

“Can I ask you a question, Hank?” Connor says suddenly, and Hank raises a bushy eyebrow, eyes flicking down to the beer, then back up to Connor.

 

“Is this a hostage situation?” Hank asks, and Connor’s eyebrow shoots up.

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“If I say ‘no,’ you gonna hold onto that?” He nods to the bottle, and Connor smiles weakly down into his amber reflection.

 

“No,” Connor says. “I’m going to hold onto it no matter what. I’m a highly advanced android prototype developed for detective work and forensics.” He meets Hank’s eyes. “ _Not_ a bottle opener.”

 

Hank snorts, but he smiles and leans his arm against his driver-side door, scratching his head. “Alright, alright,” he says, and he reaches to his phone to turn down the music, lowering it to a quiet hum in the background. “Ask your damn question, then. My fault for losing my damn bottle opener, I guess.”

 

Connor smiles at him and lowers his head once again. Fingering the beer bottle, he examines the prongs of its cap.

 

“I’m struggling with learning how to live as a deviant,” he confesses in a rush, but slows himself when next he speaks. “Or, ‘free,’ as Markus would put it.” Lifting his eyes to Hank’s, he sees some kind of trepidation in there. Maybe Hank _should_ be worried. Connor doesn’t want Hank to worry.

 

“What, my lessons in humanity aren’t helping?”

 

“I haven’t learned anything from _Friends_ , no,” Connor says. “Except that I’m grateful we don’t live in New York.”

 

Hank snorts, leaning back in his seat and laying a hand in his lap, his other arm resting against the window. A grin spreads his chapped lips, and Connor aches. Pain isn’t a new feeling, but this kind of pain is. Wanting hurts.

 

“Guess I’m not a very good human tutor, then. You sure you should be asking _me_ for advice?”

 

“You’re the _only_ person I can ask,” Connor says. It’s true, but somehow it seems to catch Hank off-guard. His eyes widen.

 

“Well, shit, then. Alright. What’s -- uh, going on?”

 

Connor ignores the software instability that pops up in his HUD. It’s nerves, anxiety. Something he has become used to during the nights they’ve spent in this cramped little car, drowning in a haze of smoke. He begins to pluck at the label of the beer bottle, digging his nails under the paper.

 

“How do you tell someone that you’re interested in them?” he asks, then lifts his eyes once more to Hank’s. There’s confusion there, clear as day, and Connor tilts his head forward. “Romantically,” he clarifies.

 

“I’m sorry -- what?” Hank asks, voice far louder than it needs to be.

 

“Do you need me to repeat the question?” Connor asks. A quick scan; Hank’s ears are fine.

 

“No, just -- what? You --” Hank shakes his head, seems to regain himself, a strange, strained smile reaching his face as he lets out a barking laugh. “God help me, Connor’s got a genuine human feeling. Who is it?”

 

“That’s not important,” Connor says. Another lie. It is important -- it’s the most important thing in the world, at least to him.

 

“Well what are you asking _me_ for? Just tell them, right?”

 

“How?” Connor asks, and the word sounds almost desperate as his LED flashes yellow, reflected in foggy windshield. “I downloaded protocols -- hundreds of them -- but all they tell me is how to do what someone _else_ wants. How to be the perfect partner to someone _else_ . I can’t figure out how to ask for the things that _I_ want, and nothing in the CyberLife database can help me with that. Only --” He pauses, turns back to the bottle and shakes his head, continuing to tear off the label. “Only a human can.”

 

The words hang heavy between them, and Hank lets out a low whistle. In his periphery Connor can see a look of thoughtful consternation on Hank’s face. “Alright, kid, I’ll do what I can. Just -- maybe start with this.” He shifts, facing Connor, and Connor looks back to him. “What _do_ you want? Easier to ask for it once you know what it is.”

 

Blinking, Connor tilts his head downward, eyes scanning his own narrow frame and then lifting to Hank’s. Hank’s familiar form in his familiar garish shirt, with that familiar wiry beard. “I want to touch him,” Connor says, and the software instability warning pops up again. He’s been ignoring it since he went deviant. He could turn the notifications off, but they help him to know when he’s feeling something new. When he’s feeling something important.

 

“Okay,” Hank prompts, waving a hand at him, “what else?”

 

“I want to see him, even when he doesn’t want to see me. I want to see him _all the time_ . I want to make him happy. But I want him to make _me_ happy, too. I want him to do things for me. Little things, like the little things I do for him.” Perfect memories rise up inside him, Hank’s hand brushing Connor’s as Connor hands him his morning coffee, Hank’s sleeping face turning into the pillow as Connor pulls the blanket over Hank’s shoulder, the look of surprised delight Hank wore when Connor made him breakfast -- a thank-you for letting Connor stay while he figured out where he wanted to go after the revolution.

 

He hasn’t left Hank’s home yet. There have been many mornings like that first.

 

“I want him to _want_ to do those things for me,”Connor finishes quietly.

 

“Sounds like you got it bad, kid,” Hank says with a fond little smile, and Connor manages to return it, shaking his head and looking away. He sheds the torn bit of beer bottle label onto the floor. Hank won’t mind the mess.

 

“I guess I do.”

 

“Well, listen.” Hank scratches his head again, casting his eyes out the window over the park. “I haven’t done that whole dating thing in a long time -- I’m talking a _long_ time. I don’t know how good my advice is going to be.”

 

“Try,” Connor says. It must sound like a plea because Hank looks almost pitying when his eyes return to Connor’s.

 

“Goddamn, could you try to look less like a kicked puppy?” Hank asks. Connor startles, sitting a little straighter, and that must be what Hank wants because he shakes his head and tosses up his hands. “Alright, well, I don’t know. Why don’t you buy him a drink?”

 

Connor thinks back to the night they met, a fond memory in spite of Hank’s initial distrust. “I did once,” he says softly. “But I didn’t -- feel this way about him, back then. And he didn’t care much for me, either.”

 

“Then buy him another,” Hank suggests. “It’s not rocket science, Connor.”

 

Yellow flashes in the window reflection as Connor looks to the beer in his hand, purposely withheld, and he sets the bottle on the floor. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Hank huffs and flops back against his seat. “Yeah, you sure aren’t a fan of the hard stuff, huh? Alright, no drink. Why don’t you just get him alone and tell him how you feel?”

 

“I don’t know how to _say_ it,” Connor says, voice taut with frustration that Hank obviously notices. His lips part, brows shooting up. “That’s why I’m asking you. Hank, please.”

 

“Be easier if I knew who it was,” Hank says. “Tell me about him. What’s he like? This one of your Jericho buddies? Josh or, what was his name? Simon?”

 

“No, nothing like that.”

 

“Human, then?”

 

Connor wants there to be hope in Hank’s tone. He can’t tell if there is.

 

“Yes,” Connor says eventually. “He’s a detective.” Connor pauses, LED flashing, and if some might call his tone ‘petulant’ when next he speaks, some may be right. “But he hasn’t figured out how I feel yet, so I’m starting to doubt his abilities pretty significantly.”

 

Hank leans back, heart rate rising impressively now, and Connor doesn’t even bother to school the hope out of his expression when he looks up to him. If Hank has finally figured it out, maybe that will spare Connor the burden of trying to learn how to tell him.

 

“Shit,” Hank says. He scratches his beard, agitated -- nervous? But Connor’s hopes get doused immediately, like striking flint underwater. “Please tell me it’s not Reed.”

 

Connor would sigh if he needed to breathe. He considers doing it anyway, just for show. “Hank,” he deadpans, and that seems to be answer enough.

 

“Fine, fine, I’ll stop guessing,” Hank says, lifting his hands in deference. Connor leans his head back against his seat, closing his eyes.

 

“Just --” Connor begins, then draws his lip between his teeth, worrying it for a moment. He wishes he had his coin, something to fidget with. “Just tell me how _you_ would want someone to say that they loved you. That they would give up -- that they _did_ give up -- everything for you?”

 

When he cracks open his eyes again, Hank’s expression seems to have darkened, some demon or another worming its way into his mind where it doesn’t belong. Connor wants to drive those demons out.

 

“Connor, no one’s said anything like that to me in years. Can’t imagine they will any time soon, either.”

 

“Indulge me,” Connor says, and Hank laughs, the darkness dispelled for a moment as his whole face seems to light up -- maybe it’s just the flush on his cheeks burning like a campfire in the cold.

 

“Alright, well, I guess…” he pauses, and considers the question. Connor is grateful for that. He wants this to be perfect, if it can be. “I uh, I guess I’d want them to tell me they don’t think I’m a piece of shit.”

 

“That is an incredibly low bar, Hank,” Connor says, and Hank laughs again, reaching up and shoving Connor’s shoulder. Connor doesn’t budge, but his whole system seems to light itself on fire at Hank’s touch. He blinks away the error messages, the warnings. He’s good at ignoring warnings when it comes to Hank.

 

“I wasn’t finished, you tin can,” Hank says, but there’s no malice in the insult. It sounds affectionate, like a term of endearment. “I was going to say … well, it’d be nice if they could say they even _like_ me most of the time. And, you know, I’d want them to tell me what they wanted from me.” His eyes lift back up to Connor’s, his tone taking on something almost schooling, matronly -- at least for Hank. “There’s all kinds of romance, Connor. If it were me, I’d want to know what kind you were looking for. Dating or casual or, you know, a one-time thing. You’d have to figure that out for yourself.” A pause. Connor’s LED cycles, information processing and embedding itself in the core of him, where his instructions used to be. Purpose. “Does that help?”

 

“It … does.” He says slowly.

 

A relieved sigh -- all the breath in Hank’s lungs -- leaves in one heaving _whoosh_ , and Hank flops back against his seat like he just finished a marathon.“Thank _god_.” He holds out a hand  to Connor, and Connor considers clasping it in his own for all of a moment. “Now open that beer, will you? I could use a drink or ten after this conversation.”

 

Connor looks down to the beer he’d discarded on the floor, its amber liquid sloshing when he nudges it with his foot. He doesn’t want to open it. He wants to give Hank something else.

 

“I don’t think you’re a piece of shit,” he says quietly. The words drift through the air between them like the snow drifts on the breeze outside, and Connor can _feel_ the moment they settle. Though nothing in the barometric pressure or temperature shifts at all, the whole atmosphere of the car changes.

 

After a few seconds, Hank lowers his hand to the gear shift, head turning toward Connor with agonizing slowness. “I even like you most of the time,” Connor continues gently. The corner of his mouth lifts in a small, awkward smile, a caricature of humanity; but it’s all he can offer this man he loves.

 

“Connor --”

 

“And what I want…” Glowing a steady yellow, his LED seems to light up the whole car, casting a shadow over half of Hank’s face. “I want everything. Whatever I can have. I want to kiss you. I want to spend time with you. I want to touch you. All the time, I want to touch you.” In the silence that follows, the background noise of Hank’s music seems louder, some punk song now. Not quite as bad as the metal, but not Connor’s favorite. “And I want you to turn that off,” he adds, gesturing lamely to Hank’s phone on the dash. “Please.”

 

Hank reaches blindly for his phone and does as he’s told, his eyes focused on Connor like laser beams as he taps the screen. He accidentally skips two songs and closes out of the app before his fumbling fingers find the pause button, but after a few moments they’re left in silence. “Connor…” Hank starts, but he doesn’t get any farther than that. If he were an android, Connor would suspect a malfunction. But, of course, humans can short-circuit, too.

 

“Was that right?” Connor asks, inquisitive. He tilts his head, and Hank puts a hand on the back of his seat like he’s ready to bolt out of it. “Is that how you wanted me to say it?”

 

“Depends,” Hank croaks, which is not the answer Connor wanted to hear. But he waits, and Hank shifts, turned fully to him as the leather of his seat creaks in complaint. His eyes dart out the front window, then back to Connor, lightning fast. “Were you, just now, were you practicing on me? Or was that the main event?”

 

Sweat begins to prickle at Hank’s hairline, and Connor holds his gaze, scanning every inch of him and finding his heart pounding, his breathing speeding up, his palms sweating. Connor doesn’t know if this is fear or anticipation. Maybe it’s both.

 

“You’re a detective,” Connor reminds him. Slowly, tentatively, he lays a hand over Hank’s on the back of his seat. It’s the first touch like this he has ever risked, with anyone, and it takes a moment for him to speak as he caresses Hank’s knuckles. “Please tell me you’ve figured it out by now.”

 

“Holy shit.” The words come out a rough whisper, the sound shooting straight to Connor’s chest where the ache of wanting usually lives, where Connor can just barely feel it beginning to ease. As Hank stares open-mouthed at him, gaping like a gourami, Connor runs a rapid preconstruction -- Hank’s hands coming to fist in the lapels of his jacket, Hank’s lips crashing against his own, his mouth opening so Connor can taste him, process him, analyze him down to the molecule and know everything there is to know about him and --

 

Hank yanks his hand out of Connor’s grasp; storm clouds roll in over the sky blue in his eyes; his heart beats like a rabbit trapped in a cage, cornered. “Holy _shit_ , Connor,” he says again, and before Connor can stop him he’s turned around and kicked open his door, climbing out into a blast of freezing air. His jacket lies draped over the back of his seat, but he doesn’t pause to take it. Instead, he slams the door behind him and stalks out into the falling snow. For a moment, Connor sits as frozen as the grass crunching under Hank’s footsteps, and he feels just as broken.

 

This isn’t what Connor wanted. This isn’t _near_ what Connor wanted. What he expected. What hoped for.

 

Nothing about freedom has been disappointing yet, but this is _disappointment_ cascading through his wires, heartache blasting error messages across his vision. Though it takes his systems a moment to catch up to his thoughts, he manages to clear the warnings in his HUD, throw open his own door, and scan for Hank -- now making his way quickly down the pathway toward the river. His arms are curled around his chest, the T-shirt doing little to keep him warm.

 

“Hank!” Connor calls, but Hank keeps walking as if he didn’t hear him. The snow has laid a blanket of pure silence over the empty park. Hank heard him.

 

“Hank!” He yells again, frustrated now, and slams his own door, rushing toward the riverside and kicking snow over Hank’s footprints.

 

It doesn’t take long for him to catch up. None the least because Hank doesn’t have anywhere else to go from here. He’s stopped at the railing, staring out over the white-capped city and the gleaming lights of the bridge through the snow and the churning, black water before them. Hot breath leaves his lungs in puffs like smoke, fast and afraid, and Connor draws up beside him. He lays his hands on the railing, registering the cold bite of metal without feeling it.

 

Hank keeps his eyes forward.

 

“God damn it, you can’t be serious,” Hank mutters after a moment. Connor isn’t sure if Hank is talking to him, or to himself.

 

“Of course I’m serious,” Connor replies, hedging his bets. His voice sounds tired. Maybe he is.

 

“Why me, huh?” Hank asks, spinning to face him. He might mean to sound tough, angry even, but in the cold, in nothing but his collared T-shirt with the snow falling in delicate flakes and clinging to his wayward hair and his unkempt beard, he looks smaller than he ever has. “You won, Connor. Androids are free, right? You can go anywhere you want. You can _do_ anything you want! What the _hell_ are you doing here with me?”

 

Something -- tension, it must be -- eases in Connor’s chest. This isn’t a rejection. Not yet, at least. But it’s a question that deserves an answer.

 

“Lessons in humanity,” Connor says with a smile, a small one, but enough to share between them. “You’ve taught me how to be human, Hank. You didn’t have to. You didn’t even _want_ to. But you let me stay with you after the rebellion. You let me stay on as your partner. You’re a -- a better person than you think you are.” Connor feels a dark chuckle rising up in his throat, and he manages a laugh. “I’m programmed to notice things. To -- to find patterns. I noticed your compassion. Can you blame me for admiring it, too?”

 

Hank looks away with a huff, a cloud of breath rising before him. A hand reaches up to scratch at his beard, and Connor wishes, not for the first time, that he could interface with Hank, that he could feel what he feels and see what he sees and understand him on a level he never will. But he loves Hank because Hank is human. He _wants_ Hank because Hank is human. So Connor simply clenches his hand at his side and takes a bold step closer.

 

“Why are you upset?” He asks.

 

Hank’s barking laugh startles Connor, but Connor doesn’t move away. When Hank looks to him with a desperate kind of smile on his face and a useless flop of his hand, Connor doesn’t think he _can_ move away.

 

“I’m all used up, Con,” Hank says with a note of despair Connor has never heard in his voice. “I was all used up six years before you were even born. Made. Whatever you want to call it. You want, what, ‘everything’? I got nothing left to give you. Even if I wanted to, I --” He rubs his forehead, turning away. “God it’s fucking freezing out here, what the fuck am I doing.” Though Connor should be grateful to see Hank take his first step back toward the warmth of the car, his hand shoots out without his permission, taking Hank by the elbow.

 

“Wait--”

 

“Connor--”

 

“You said ‘even if I wanted to,’” Connor says hurriedly. “But you _do_ want to, don’t you? You want…” _me_ , he doesn’t say. At least, he doesn’t say it aloud. Hank must see it in his face.

 

The two of them hang suspended in time for all of a second, stretching into eternity, and every single preconstruction Connor can envision ends with Hank walking away.

 

His fingers tighten around Hank’s arm. “Hank,” he whispers.

 

It happens in an instant. Shaking off Connor’s grip, Hank takes one solid step toward him, fastens his hands on the sides of Connor’s face and yanks him forward. Connor falls into the pull, his hands landing on Hank’s chest, and his lips -- his lips finding _Hank’s_ , cold from the snow and chapped and rough and _human_. Red flickers over Hank’s closed eyes, Connor’s LED flashing, and Connor closes his eyes against its glare. And, as he did each time he lowered his gun -- for the girls at the Eden Club, for Chloe, for Markus -- he gives into something inexplicable inside him, and more powerful than any program.

 

Hands roaming up Hank’s chest to his neck, Connor pulls him in closer, licking between his lips to taste him, and Hank lets out a sound, a whimper before tilting his head into their kiss and accepting Connor’s probing tongue. Readings run down Connor’s HUD, the traces of nicotine and caffeine drugging him dizzy, or maybe it’s just the effect of Hank’s thumbs caressing his cheeks.

 

Bodies pressed together, Connor holds onto the feeling of Hank’s heartbeat, relishes the hot breath coming out Hank’s nose in panicked spurts, and when finally Hank pulls away and gasps, Connor can only stand there, eyes closed, processing it all, hands firm where they hold Hank in place.

 

“Shit, Connor,” Hank whispers. He brings his hands to Connor’s and pulls at Connor’s fingers, dislodging his grip just as Connor manages to open his eyes. Hank’s image practically swims before him as Connor blinks into the ethereal glow of the falling snow and the city lights reflecting red off the water.

 

Hank steps back. “This isn’t right,” he says. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

 

“What are you talking about?” Connor closes the distance between them, more sure in his advance than Hank seems to be in his retreat. “Your pupils are dilated 30 percent, your heart rate spiked at 110. It’s 15 degrees out here and you’re sweating. I wouldn’t even _have_ to be a highly advanced prototype to know you’re attracted to me.”

 

“Of course I am, you asshole!” Hank shouts, tossing his hands in the air. He turns away, stalking over toward the bench, the same bench where, only weeks ago, he held a gun to Connor’s head. “Look at you! You were literally _designed_ to be fucking perfect. And me? What the fuck am I?”

 

“You’re Lieutenant Hank Anderson,” Connor says, voice harsh. “The most decorated detective in the history of Detroit, who graduated top of his class and took down the city’s biggest Red Ice operation.” Hank scoffs, haunching up his shoulders against the wind and walking away -- still walking away. Connor lunges, grabbing Hank’s shoulder and yanking him around. The volume of his voice climbs without his permission. “You have _personal issues_ . You drink too much. You eat like a 14-year-old boy. You smoke. You listen to music I can’t stand, and sometimes you make me so mad I could _shake_ you.” Connor throws his hands in the air, looking around desperately before his eyes fall on Hank again, as they always do. “And I like being around you,” Connor continues. His shoulders fall. “I _love_ being around you. I _can_ go anywhere I want. I _can_ do anything I want. And tonight I _wanted_ to sit in your smelly car listening to your terrible music.”

 

Hank blinks at him, lips parted, though he holds his breath tight in his chest. It takes a moment for him to form words, and Connor waits. He’d wait a lifetime for Hank to speak.

 

“You done, then?” Hank asks quietly. Connor straightens, tugging his jacket into place.

 

“Yes,” he says. He’s not sure that’s true.

 

“You really hate my music that much? I thought you liked Knights of the Black Death.” The corner of Hank’s lips has pulled itself taut, not a smile exactly, but enough to dig a small dimple into his cheek, its shadow just visible beneath the wiry curls of Hank’s beard. Connor wants to be that dimple.

 

“I didn’t know I hated it back then,” Connor admits. “I didn’t know I could hate _anything_ back then.”

 

“I didn’t even know you could _now_ ,” Hank admits. He places a hand on his hip, then reaches up to scratch his head almost sheepishly. Eyes falling to the snowy footsteps between them, Hank collects himself for a moment. “Didn’t know you could feel, you know,” he tosses a hand at him. “Like you do.”

 

“You didn’t know I could love you,” Connor clarifies, and Hank’s cheeks take on a scarlet flush.

 

“Didn’t know anyone could,” Hank mumbles. The ache is back, that familiar ache in Connor’s chest, but it’s not just wanting anymore. It’s -- empathy, maybe. Another damned Kamski test.

 

They don’t speak for a second, but Hank is shivering now, the cold catching up to him.

 

“Hank, we should get back to the car,” Connor says. He calculates the risk, and lifts a hand to Hank’s arm, laying gentle over his bicep. His thumb strokes skin just under the sleeve of Hank’s T-shirt, and Hank’s eyes fall to the touch like it’s the only thing in the world.

 

But he doesn’t do as Connor says. Connor isn’t even sure Hank was listening. Because when next Hank speaks, it comes out in a rush. All at once, like he doesn’t want to say it. Like he isn’t sure he should.

 

“I didn’t plan on this,” Hank says suddenly, and Connor stiffens, nearly drawing back. “Not with you. Not with anyone. You understand that, Connor?” When their eyes meet, Hank’s are sharp and intent.

 

“‘This,’” Connor echoes. “What does ‘this’ mean?”

 

Hank holds his eyes. “I was gonna die alone, Connor. That’s all I ever planned for me. If you want -- if you want _everything_ , you’re getting that baggage, too. I don’t know how to be with people anymore.”

 

Maybe those words are meant to dissuade Connor. Maybe Hank’s trying to warn him away, give him one last chance to back out, to claim he was mistaken or something ridiculous like that. But instead, all Connor can process is the look on Hank’s face -- hope. If this is Connor’s last chance to back out, he knows he could never take it.

 

Instead, he comes closer, his other hand rising to Hank’s bristly cheek, where he strokes that beard like he’s wanted to do for weeks. Hank doesn’t pull away, but his eyes widen; his chest heaves with a sudden breath. “That’s something we have in common, Lieutenant,” Connor says softly. “I never learned how to be with people in the first place.”

 

“You’re obviously better at it than I am,” Hank says. A sad smile spreads over his face. “Here you tell me the nicest thing anyone’s told me in a good decade, and I yell at you for it. Piece of shit.” Connor stares up into his eyes and one of those rough hands comes so gently, so tentatively, to Connor’s hip. It rests there like it doesn’t know what else to do. Connor grins, tilting his head.

 

“I don’t think you’re a piece of shit,” Connor says again. “I even like you most of the time.”

 

Hank snorts, leaning in and nudging his nose against Connor’s. “Maybe I like you most of the time, too,” he mutters.

 

“Now can we get back to the car?” Connor asks. “You’re shivering.”

 

“I’d be warmer if someone would’ve let me drink my beer,” Hank remarks, but he draws away, tugging Connor by the seam of his coat toward the car. Headlights glare at them through the thickening snow.

 

“I don’t want you to drink tonight,” Connor says.

 

Hank’s brows draw together, but even as his lips part to speak, Connor’s mouth runs away with him. “And -- and I don’t want you to smoke, either. I want to listen to Ella Fitzgerald when we get in the car, and I want to watch _Friends_ with you when we get home. I want --”

 

Hank laughs from somewhere deep in his chest, tossing back his head and laying a hand on his belly. The wind whips his gray hair across his forehead, and Connor couldn’t continue if he wanted to. Everything he wants is right here -- right here in front of him. Laughing and smiling because of _Connor_.

 

“Finally figured out how to ask for what you want, did you?” Hank asks, holding out his hand for Connor to take. “See, you don’t need me.”

 

Connor reaches out, accepting Hank’s offered hand and squeezing it tight as they walk together down the path. “Maybe not,” he says softly, and Hank glances back at him, smile falling slightly. “But I want you.”

 

The warm smile rises up again like the sun, showing off the endearing gap between Hank’s front teeth. “Then, fuck, I guess you’ve got me,” Hank says. He tugs Connor hard against him as they approach the car, the scent of his cigarette clinging to his hair and the polyester fibers of his shirt.

 

“Everything?” Connor asks.

 

Hank huffs. Titling his lips against Connor’s hair, he lays a kiss to the crown of his head. “Yeah yeah,” he says. It might sound like a complaint to anyone else, but Connor hears the warmth in Hank’s tone, enough to drive off the December chill.

 

It takes a monumental effort for Connor to convince himself to let go of Hank’s hand as Hank approaches the driver’s side door, but he manages. He moves toward his own side, fits his hand in the handle, but his eyes are on Hank over the roof of the car. Hank’s staring at his hand, flexing his fingers.

 

“Everything,” he says, his voice choking on a note of awe, and he looks back up to Connor. His eyes burn blue and bright in the darkness. Connor smiles.

 

He knows, then, staring at Hank’s lopsided smile, that the easiest way to get what he wants is simpler than he might have expected.

 

All he ever had to do was ask.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!! It means the world to me!!!! Wrote this faster than I usually do, so please forgive any mistakes or clumsiness; I just had to get it out of my brain, hahaha! 
> 
> If you feel like indulging me my new obsession, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @AdmiralLiss. Or, if you feel like indulging me my constant obsession (Star Trek), come scream at me on Tumblr at OneDamnMinuteAdmiral.
> 
> Love you!


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